First Snow

Outside my window, soft, not as cold as it seems it should be. The world is subsumed, hard edges of reality softened and melted into white rounds. Wind defeats gravity and retrieves deposited powder, lifts it into swirls and billows that obscure the streetlight. The day was darkly grey, but the night is bright, refracting, reflecting, amplifying ambient light to create a silvered illumination to rival the sun and dwarf the hidden moon. If only everything could be this beautiful forever, empty chill world drawing me to walk forever, rediscover the infinite in the landscape I trudge through daily. But in the morning, modernity will eclipse beauty, and society will choose convenience over magic. My shrill alarm will wake me to a world ravaged by plows, footprints, salt, and noise. The grey asphalt will be uncovered, and noises of life will resume. The neighbor's angry dog will warn the snow away, cars will burst through the slush in their hurry to resume normalcy. Tonight's perfect hush and blissful white will be muddied, muddled and shoveled aside. And I will worry about waterproofing and warmth and productivity, forgetting what is revealed every first snow, leaving this serenity for the comforting weight of the expected. Tonight's joy will be erased in the necessary tasks of the day, and I will bundle and grouse about the inconvenience and cold with everyone else. But for now, the snow is a miracle. Glory and magic and possibilities. If the world can bring this, anything must be possible, even probable.
And if I had snowboots and my mom wouldn't be difficult, I'd go explore. Alas, there is no traying party to create, no golf course to disappear into. So I guess I'll just dream and sleep and wish.